Page 2758 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 October 1992
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MR MOORE (4.35): Madam Speaker, I would like to give a couple of quotations. The first one refers to the position of the Board of Health and the Minister on the ACT methadone program going to community pharmacies:
This can be done within the existing budget ...
I also quote these words:
The advantages of administering methadone from approved community pharmacies are:
. clients needing little supervision can receive treatment from community pharmacies, allowing more costly medical and counselling resources to be focused on those most in need;
. treatment is more accessible because of the location and hours of operation of community pharmacies;
. the user-pay system allows greater numbers to access the service (currently all methadone is dispensed free of charge).
Mr Humphries: Who wrote that?
MR MOORE: Madam Speaker, in response to Mr Humphries's interjection, I point out that this is a fax dated 25 September 1991 from the Alcohol and Drug Service. It was a submission to the Minister. You will note in submissions to the Estimates Committee, Madam Speaker, a greatly changed attitude in response to the Minister coming down with a policy that says, "We are not going to allow pharmacies to provide this service". The document I am quoting went on to say, Madam Speaker, and I think this is most critical - if Mr Berry will listen:
Dispensing methadone from community pharmacies is consistent -
I notice that Mr Berry leaves for this part; but, for the rest of the Assembly, I continue -
with the National Methadone Guidelines endorsed by the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy, a forum of State and Federal police and health Ministers.
I shall come back to that point about the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy and the national guidelines. Mr Berry, in his opening comments, accused me of being intemperate and making uncalled for comments. I concede, to a certain extent, the intemperance. As to the uncalled-for comments, in no way do I resile from the comments I made at the time of tabling this report.
Madam Speaker, Mr Berry went on to comment that it was just the profitability of pharmacies that the committee had concerned itself with. In no way have I any difficulty with pharmacies being profitable. I think it is a perfectly reasonable and perfectly normal part of our society - which is driven, to some extent, by profitability. I have no difficulty at all with that. When profitability is the only motive, then we may have some concern. But we all deal with our pharmacists constantly and know that profit is not the only motive. I gave an example of that in my tabling speech. I think it was very churlish of Mr Berry to suggest that that was the case.
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